


faith's not quite dead

by helloearthlings



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, During Canon, Early in Canon, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Shared Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 10:03:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14470290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloearthlings/pseuds/helloearthlings
Summary: Mary was in the midst of the worst day of her life when she first met Sammy Stevens and Ben Arnold.





	faith's not quite dead

**Author's Note:**

> I've been trying to write fic all week, but I was planning on writing an early canon look at Ron's relationship with Sammy that turned into me writing about an early canon look at Mary's relationship with Sammy. Expect something Ron-related soon though, because I'm gay and have feelings.
> 
> Anyway, I love and miss Mary Jensen with all my heart and she deserves everything. But her and Sammy's narratives are also paralleled in the same way as Sammy and Ben's, and I have a lot of feelings about it, guys. Also, someone in this town has to know how to use fucking Google and we all know that it's not Ben Arnold and I'm willing to bet that if there's anyone smart enough, it's Mary. 
> 
> Not really sure what I'm going for style-wise here, but hopefully you enjoy it!

Mary was in the midst of the worst day of her life when she first met Sammy Stevens and Ben Arnold.

After a day full of discussions with Sheriff Gunderson and Deputy Troy, identifying Tim’s belongings, and having to explain to her two kids that their dad just _wasn’t here anymore_ on top of all of her neighbors that kept dropping by casseroles, it was a surprise to see two boys she didn’t know standing on her front stoop that afternoon.

“You’re the boys from the radio station,” Mary said after staring at the two for a moment, a horrible sick feeling sweeping over her body.

The taller one – Sammy, she remembered Deputy Troy mentioning in his explanation – cleared his throat. “Yes, ma’am. You’re Mary Jensen? Tim’s wife?”

Even hearing Tim’s name was enough to make Mary wobble, just a little. “Yes. That’s me.”

“Mary, we’re here with…with the tape of last night’s show,” the other, Ben, she knew Ben, had met Ben – he’d been in King Falls all his life just like her, but their generations were just off enough that they only knew each other obliquely. Ben would've still been in grade school when she graduated, so their generations were just off enough that they hadn't met face to face. “We thought you might want to…listen.”

“It has….has Tim on it? Tim being taken?” Mary’s heartrate increased as she stared down at the innocuous looking tape in Ben’s grip, her gut threatening to burst. She hadn’t been able to eat all day.

“Obviously, we can leave it with you for you to listen on your own time –” Sammy started to say but Mary shook her head jerkily, knowing that if she didn’t get this over with today, then tomorrow would be just as terrible, and it couldn’t be, it just couldn’t be, she needed tomorrow to be better than today.

“Come in, show me how to work the damn thing,” Mary stepped aside from the doorway to let the boys into the house.

The kids weren’t home – her parents had taken them for the day, thank God, they didn’t need to listen to this. They didn’t need to know what was on the tape, Tim’s last words before –

Before – something happened. Something she didn’t know.

“It’s not a lot,” Sammy shifted toward her as Ben fumbled with the tape as she led them into the kitchen. “Just a couple of minutes. But…we thought it was important that you got to hear it before we turned it in as evidence down at the sheriff’s station.”

Mary cleared her throat to keep from sounding too teary. “I appreciate it, boys, I really do. Now let me hear what happened.”

Sammy and Ben were quiet as the tape played – Mary heard it, but the words passed through her like air, like they were meaningless, like that couldn’t possibly be her Tim. The scream at the end – no, it couldn’t possibly be Tim –

And yet it was. It was Tim. Tim was gone and this tape proved it.

Mary wiped her eyes. “I – thank you. Really. It was rough to hear, but I needed to hear it. Couldn’t have gone on without hearing it first, knowing it for myself. Feels…feels real now in a way it didn’t before.”

“Mary, if you need anything, anything at all, please just let us know,” Ben said, earnest as can be, but it was Sammy who met Mary’s eye. He had a look about him – a resigned sort of look, like he could see right into her head and know the helplessness that had just moved in and made a place to stay for the foreseeable future.

“Seriously,” Sammy said, much more somber than his friend. He leaned in and, after a second’s hesitation, squeezed her shoulder. “Anything.”

Mary nodded at them, not able to get another word out.

The boys stayed true to their word, truer than any of Mary’s other friends and neighbors. While their words and actions were always appreciated, no one took their promise quite as seriously as Sammy and Ben.

Seemed like nearly every day Sammy was at her doorstep with Ben in tow. Sammy wasn’t like the others because he didn’t wait for a call to ask how he could help, he showed up and offered it each day without fail. The burden was off Mary’s shoulders – she sometimes felt like a burden to the town, but never to Sammy and Ben, because Sammy and Ben were just already always there.

Ben was best with the kids – he would sit on the floor in the playroom with them for hours, playing toy trains and letting Bella give him ridiculous makeovers with her lipstick set. He’d take them to the library and the park and let Mary breathe for a while, even though breathing without Tim around was a job in itself.

Sammy knew perfectly well that Mary had enough casseroles to last her a lifetime, so he helped in other ways. He cleaned the house, mowed the grass, took Mary’s car to the shop to get it checked out, bought her groceries, even kept her calendar and helped her figure out how to pay the bills, all the things Mary didn’t have to think about when Tim was around.

Once, he even tried to give her a check for far more money than Mary could possibly accept, and she practically swatted it out of his hands.

“Sammy Stevens!” She hissed, almost offended. Sammy offered up an awkward half-smile and a shrug. He’d just picked up the kids from school when Mary had to schedule a meeting with the bank, and he’d stopped her on the front porch with his checkbook out. “Merv doesn’t pay that kind of money!”

“I used to have a higher paying job,” Sammy explained sheepishly as if it were some embarrassing fact that he’d rather forget. “Honestly, Mary, it’s not much, but it’ll get you by –”

“You help me enough without money,” Mary told him pointedly. “You help me more than anyone else, Sammy, every single day you help me. I can’t possibly accept any money from you of all people. I’m not below taking charity – God knows there’s not enough charity in the world. If Steven Grisham wants to stop on by and give me a donation, I’ll gladly accept. But not you, Sammy.”

“I just feel like I could be doing more,” Sammy started to half-heartedly argue with her, but Mary shut him down with a raised hand, a rush of affection welling up for him.

“Sammy, a day hasn’t passed in six months when you haven’t at least texted me to check in,” Mary said. “You and Ben do so much for me – for the kids – I can never repay you for it as is. Those kids have taken to calling Ben their uncle, you know that? You’re still Shotgun Sammy, of course, but that’s because they think shotguns are cool. The two of you have been so selfless –”

“This isn’t –” Sammy almost looked pained, his face creased up like he couldn’t quite get words out. “This isn’t selflessness, Mary. God, this is selfish, if anything. I just want – I just know that if someone –”

His face screwed up and Mary realized that he really was having trouble getting the words out. Sammy was as eloquent as could be on the radio and in life, but for once, he was lost for words.

It scared her, just a little. She didn’t know what he could say next.

“You’re someone who deserves help,” Sammy continued tightly, his pain palpable, “who had something horrible happen to them and is still fighting in spite of that. And that’s the kind of bravery I wish I had. I just want to support you, Mary – because you deserve it. More than anyone I’ve ever met.”

The anguish on his face was enough to get Mary to realize there was more to what he said than what met the eye, but she knew it wasn’t her place to question it. Sometimes things were better left unsaid, and Sammy never pushed to talk about anything in the past and she owed him the same respect.

But it was her place to pull him into a tight hug and let him rest his chin on top her head – goddamn, that boy was too tall – because in the span of the time since Tim had gone missing, Sammy and Ben had become somewhat like brothers to her. And despite the fact that they were the ones supposed to be taking care of her, she felt more than a little motherly toward the pair of them.

“You call me,” she said into Sammy’s shoulder, “when _I_ can help _you._ You got that? After all the help you've given me, you _will_ call me so I can return the favor.”

“It’s not the same,” Sammy tried to say but Mary slapped him lightly on the arm as they broke apart.

“I don’t care what your problem is,” Mary told him. “It can be as simple as Ben’s being an annoying little shit today or as big as needing help burying a body. I’m your man, Stevens. You remember that.”

Sammy seemed to realize that arguing would be futile – he really was a smart boy underneath all that sarcasm – and just smiled at her. “Alright, Mary. You’d probably be better at body-burying than Ben, anyway. He’d probably just lecture me the whole time about how the body’s gonna come back to haunt me later.”

He cracked a smile at her, but Mary could see through it. There was something more to Sammy, something that he wasn’t letting on – not to her, not to Ben, not to anybody.

But Mary wasn’t a busybody who put her nose in other people’s business like so many of the other townsfolk she could name, and Sammy had enough of those folks. She could take no for answer, and let someone else’s life be their life without her interference.

But if she could help, she damn well wanted to.

She knew Sammy wasn’t the type to ask for it, though, so she didn’t keep her hopes up. The year came to a close and Sammy and Ben knew perfectly well not to give her money for Christmas, but they came by with a boatload of toys from Santa. Ben even dressed up as Santa for the kids and they told him he was too short to be Santa, which made Sammy snort milk through his nose.

Into the New Year there was still no sign of Tim, but Mary swallowed her pain and kept going, kept moving, kept on because it was the only thing she could do, the only thing she knew how to do, and she was getting better at living without him.

She prayed every night for Tim – that he was safe, that he would come home – and even though it felt hopeless at times, Mary knew that she had to hold onto that hope or else all of this would’ve been for nothing.

That hope jolted when she heard from Ron Begley about the dead body found out on Lake Hatchenhaw that March.

She couldn’t breathe while not knowing, couldn’t eat or sleep, couldn’t function – surely she would’ve been called in if they’d recognized Tim, but what if the body was too decayed to get a positive identification? Its appearance and the Rainbow Lights were a little too coincidental for Mary’s blood pressure.

So early one morning before work, she left her kids at her parents’ house and drove down to the morgue where she knew the body was being kept. She had to know. She had to be able to see the body and know if it was Tim or not. She deserved that, after all this time, she deserved to know and it would be just like the sheriff to keep it from her.

Sammy’s Honda was already in the morgue’s parking lot when she got there.

It was just after six; he must have come straight from work, she thought as she parked beside him, feeling more dread than before.

She ran into him in the doorway – he looked worse than Mary had ever seen him, dark circles under his eyes, hair unkempt, his clothes thrown on haphazardly. When he met her eye, he immediately tried to right himself, tugged at his t-shirt, tried to smooth the wrinkles.

He was always putting on a face, Mary realized as she gazed at him. He was always pretending that he wasn’t dealing with something – something great and terrible, so it seemed – on the inside.

“Mary!” Sammy said, still sounding happy to see her despite it all. “I – it’s not Tim, Mary. Dr. Rosenbloom just let me see the body – it’s not Tim. I didn’t recognize – but it’s not Tim.”

“Oh,” Mary said, but the relief she should’ve felt wasn’t there. All she could feel was a rush of concern for Sammy. “Why did you –”

“I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t Tim so I could – could let you know,” Sammy said, but it wasn’t his usual, calm eloquence. It came out garbled and anxious and like he couldn’t quite get a hold of himself.

“I don’t think so,” Mary said quietly, wanting to reach out to touch Sammy’s shoulder but she thought he might flinch away from her if she did. “Sammy – I don’t want to pry – but is there someone….someone you’re looking for?”

Sammy’s eye twitched, his hands shook, and Mary knew that she was right. A terrible sick feeling spread throughout her body at the idea of Sammy having lost someone just like she lost Tim, and keeping it so quiet.

“Sammy, you can talk to me,” Mary said, firm and present, and really did take his hand that time to squeeze it gently. He didn’t respond, but the terror in his eyes was something awful to witness. “Who – who are you looking for? Is it – someone you knew before you came to King Falls?”

The panic on Sammy’s face is answer enough.

“Why are you looking for them in King Falls?” Mary wondered out loud, but then the pieces slid together. A city slicker radio guy didn’t come to a town like King Falls for no reason. Not just because they were too small, but in King Falls’ case, the supernatural occurrences. The disappearances. “Is there – is there a connection to here? Is that why you –”

“Don’t tell anyone,” Sammy said, voice unusually high. “No one – no one would ever look at me the same way, especially Ben. Please, Mary –”

“I won’t tell a soul,” Mary told him with a squeeze hard enough to make him believe it. “God, Sammy, if you could’ve told anyone, you could’ve told me. I can help you – we can help each other.”

“I can’t, Mary,” Sammy said with a deep kind of finality. “I can’t talk about it. If I do – I just can’t. I can’t talk about this or I’ll never be able to breathe, I can’t think about _him_ – this. I mean this.”

“I understand,” Mary said quietly because that was her way. She had to deal with the whole town knowing exactly her business, and Sammy was free of that. But she still wanted him to talk to _her._ She wouldn’t push, though. That _wasn’t_ her way. “But my offer still stands. You _will_ talk to me if you need to. If anything happens. If things get worse. You’ll talk to me, Sammy Stevens, and I need you to promise me that. You got me?”

“I got you, Mary,” Sammy said without hesitation. He was good with his words, but Mary knew that his actions wouldn’t match.

 _You’re someone who deserves help_ , Sammy had said with all the earnestness in the world, and Mary knew perfectly well what that meant Sammy thought about himself.

“You deserve help,” Mary told him, forceful as she could, and she knew Sammy didn’t believe her but she had to say it anyway. “Whether it’s from me or Ben or whoever. But you’ll reach out when you need us.”

She didn’t leave him room to question it.

Later that day, when she got home, she pulled up the Google search bar and typed in _Sammy Stevens Shotgun Radio Disappearance Missing Person_.

Not because she wanted to pry – but only because she wanted to be ready to help if the time ever came.

An article from a California news outlet was the first result.

_Jack Wright, radio producer, reported missing from his Los Angeles home in the morning hours of January 16 th, 2015. Wright is prolific producer and journalist. His sister and only next of kin, Lily Wright, was unavailable for comment. _

_Wright is best-known as a producer and co-host of Shotgun Saturday Nights with “Shotgun” Sammy Stevens as available on FM Channel 102.7._

_Any information about his whereabouts should be reported to the Los Angeles County Office of Public Safety._

Mary felt a wave of nausea the likes of which she hadn’t experienced in months.

She thought of Sammy with Ben, the way he’d punch him in the shoulder, rile him up for no reason, tousle his hair, kick at his legs when he was doing something Sammy didn’t agree with – and how there had always been a certain look in his eye the whole time that Mary hadn’t realized was sadness.

She thought she’d ran out of tears for anyone but Tim a long time ago, but all she could do was sit there and cry.


End file.
